Sunday, January 24, 2010

Russ Meyer, George S. Patton & Hitler

"I see the war most vividly through the eyes of an old friend, the director Russ Meyer, who enlisted at 17 and believed, with Patton, it was the best thing that ever happened to him. Over the years he has talked about it endlessly, and I have a glimpse of Patton from Meyer. In the closing days of the war, when Meyer was a Signal Corps cameraman near the German lines in France, he was rousted from his bed in the middle of a night and ordered to join an unauthorized raid behind enemy lines to be led by Patton. The general had become convinced Hitler was making a secret visit to the front, and planned to capture him personally. "We drove off into the night," Meyer recalls. "Hitler wasn't there. We returned, and were warned to keep quiet about it. That was Patton for you.""